


A Year, a Century

by cryysis



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: (No it's not who you think), F/M, Heartbreak, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Reunions, Trying to move on, Wolves mate for life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26224894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryysis/pseuds/cryysis
Summary: The sounds aren't real, the smell is his nose playing tricks. Kouga knows that. Of course he knows that. She's been gone for five centuries. He'd never seen her again....It can't be.
Relationships: Higurashi Kagome/Kouga
Comments: 7
Kudos: 148





	A Year, a Century

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo I definitely never meant to make a second Reunion fic from KogKag month, but I miiight have been inspired by the banner I made? (Please don't judge me.)
> 
> Don't mind my reference to greco-roman things. I know it didn't happen real world history, but I liked the mental image.

Kouga walks the streets of another city, draped in a faded sweater/jacket combo, one hand in his pocket, the other holding the strings of an old duffle over his shoulder. It’s been decades since he’s seen any of the pack. Ginta and Hakkaku have tried keeping steady contact, but it’s too much for him to keep in touch. He needs the distance from them. From their worried eyes, their friendly recommendations. The unwarranted _(_ _rage inducing, heart crushing)_ advice.

_(Wolves mate for life. No amount of time would ever be able to change that.)_

He stays away from cities regularly, only stomachs them when his clothes are nearly rags. Where he’s at now isn't large, but as part of the trail to the Mountains of Dewa, it's full of students and tourists. Still, the forests border the edge of town; getting back to his cabin won’t take any time.

He's half out of it, not really paying attention to what’s going on. That’s why when he first hears it, he thinks he's dreaming. A laugh that sounds like a faded memory. But he knows that’s all it is, just another memory of a long lost girl superimposed on someone in the here and now.

When Kouga hears it again, he wonders if he’s finally lost it. He only just stops himself from straining his ears to listen. But it’s the scent on the breeze that does it, that brings his slow walk to an abrupt halt. Its like someone threw open the windows in his mind and a gust of wind blew through, bringing all his memories with it.

The sounds aren't real, the smell is his nose playing tricks. Kouga knows that. Of course he knows that. She's been gone for five centuries. He'd never seen her again.

…

_It can’t be._

~

Kagome is walking the streets with her friends when she feels it. An impossible well of power, something she hasn’t seen since the closing of the well. Her intake of breath is sudden and sharp, stopping her in her tracks. Her head turns automatically to track it, ready to shout a warning to people who are no longer there.

It’s gone as quickly as it appeared.

Her friends look worried, having stopped themselves when they realized she wasn't following. They're good friends, people she's met and gotten along with since college where they first met. Even Ayumi is here, the only one of the original three she'd never lost touch with over the years.

Ayumi is the one who calls her name, snapping Kagome back to the present. She must have imagined it. There haven't been demons in Japan for centuries. Or at least not that she’s seen. She would be the one to know; she hadn’t stopped searching for a sign of them until three years ago.

She waves it off, trying to smile even if it feels wrong in her face. Ayumi is looking at her the same way she did during her first year back. Like she's waiting for something. Sympathetic, but wondering if this is the day one of her best friends is going to crack.

As much as she understands it, Kagome hates that look more than she wants to admit.

The girls continue their trek. Kagome tries to pay attention, has to fight the urge to turn back and make a run for it. She’s crazy. They don’t exist. Time has proven it. She knows it, her mother and brother know it, even her grandfather knows it. Still wasn’t easy to accept.

They debate stopping, and Kagome tries to get back in the swing of things. She doesn't want to get lost in the past, trapped forever and alone with her memories. She wants better than that. Deserves it.

They're in front of a restaurant when it hits her again, and it makes her whole body turn with the force of it, searching desperately for the source. She takes a step, ready to run, when she remembers who she's with.

But Ayumi's smile has changed, an understanding she hasn't seen in centuries _(not since she befriended a demon slayer and began the building of a life-long, now distant friendship.)_ That smile tells her to go, to find whatever it is she needs to find. Whatever it takes to make her whole again.

Kagome’s gone faster than her friends can blink, kicking up a there-and-gone cyclone of wind.

~

  
  
  
  


Her running feet carry her through the city, through gaggles of students and local teens _(all no older than she used to be, back then, before, when time could mean anything.)_ She passes through them like a ghost, flickers of eyes catching her frantic pace without acknowledgment.

It reminds her of running through a long forgotten forest, makes her blood sing.

The aura disappears and she collapses against a column, giving herself a chance to breathe. She doesn’t know where she is, only knows that she’s near the city center. The buildings are reminders of the once grand greco-roman empire, but are covered with flecks of paint. This place doesn’t have to try and make itself look old, it already is. Instead you see the city that’s grown around it.

Kagome’s caught her breath, so she straightens, taking in the sights. She knows what direction she needs to head in, but there’s a part of her still fighting it. A corner of her mind is screaming to let it go, that if she can ignore this, she’ll have finally moved on in her new life. She should listen to it. She knows it.

There’s a hum against her skin, demonic power like static making the hair on her arm stand on end. There’s no feeling in it, nothing to tell her if its malicious or benevolent. But its unsure, flickering. As if its feeling the same uncertainty she is. Like it’s not sure if it wants to be found.

She’s already moving, but slower now, more carefully. Nervous as she is, the last thing she wants is to spook it. 

It comes and goes, leading her through the streets, making her search with her own power to seek it out. Her reiki reacts as quickly to her commands now as it did then. The years have changed how she looks. They haven’t done much for what she is.

_(Shard detector, miko, reincarnation, friend, enemy, protector, protected. Family.)_

The buildings have grown smaller. More shabby, less populated. The road was cobblestone, but no longer. It’s only dirt now, rocks scattered at its edge. The treeline is in sight, a barrier separating the city and its inhabitants _(the villagers knew to fear the woods, had never lingered near that terrifying line)_ from the wild and its wonders. The smell of wet earth and deep forest sits heavy in the air; the snap of a twig sets her heart pounding.

Whatever she found here, something was going to change. 

There weren't words to describe how desperately she needed it.

~

It was her. Standing there, only feet away.

It shouldn't have been possible; Kagome had been many things _(the love of his life, the song in his heart, the wind in his hair, the mountains at his back)_ , but she was human. Death was always going to come for her unless she bound herself to a demon. _(Even the mutt would do, as long as it meant she lived.)_

But here she is, as beautiful as he remembers her. Silky black hair, sapphire eyes, rosey skin. A scent he could track anywhere he went.

_(How that moronic half breed had ever thought she looked even remotely like that pasty ass priestess was beyond him.)_

All he had to do was step out from the trees and he could touch her. Tell her he was there, and she’d speak to him. He’d hear his name on her lips. 

His voice was gone. He couldn’t make his legs move.

She was right there, right in front of him, and he was scared fucking stiff.

~

She didn't know how long she stood there, searching with unused senses for something she couldn't see with her eyes. The longer she stood at the edge, the closer she was to the precipice. One wrong move, and she'd fall from the edge. Never to be seen again.

Her heart is pounding in her chest, enough to make her think she can hear it with human ears. If she even thinks she hears it, she knows whatever is out there surely can. But it isn't coming.

_(That's the problem with hope. It can be the most powerful thing in the world, or the most devastating.)_

Heartbreak clogs her throat, brings salt to her eyes that makes them sting. She doesn't want to cry. She doesn't want to give up. _(It was real, she knows it, she KNOWS it was real!)_

The space in front of her stays empty. There's nothing there.

No one's coming.

Quakes rack the frame of her body, and she thinks this is it. The world is coming down around her, forcing her to face reality.

No one's coming.

The weight of the world drags her knees to the ground.

They don't make it.

~

They’re laying on their sides in his bed, staring at each other. Neither can really believe they’re here, that this is happening. He’d watched the fight leave her, seen her ready to give up everything. _(His heart couldn't take it.)_

He hadn’t thought about it. His body moved, and he’d trusted his instincts for the first time since… he couldn’t remember when. But he’d taken her and ran, legs pumping faster than they ever had _(even empowered with the jewel's strength.)_ Kouga had kidnapped her all over again, dragged her to the safety of his cabin _(the privacy of his den)_ and hadn’t cared a damn bit.

_(He wasn’t going to lose her again.)_

If he’d been any less of a demon, any less of a man, he’d have already sunk his teeth in her neck and bound her life to his. Made it so she would be as indestructible, as forever lasting, as him.

But he couldn’t do it. Not because he wasn’t selfish _(there was still a high chance he’d do it sometime over the next few days)_ , not because he was worried she’d hate him when he did. It was just… he hadn’t seen her in five hundred years. What a hell of a first impression.

A crack in the window let cool air in, goosebumps rising on her delicate skin. Kouga’s hand moved on its own, the backs of his fingers brushing over the ridges of her dress. Her gasp was quiet, almost inaudible even to him. 

_(She was here. She was real. This wasn’t a dream.)_

Kouga’s thoughts are so focused inward, he doesn't see her hand moving. But he feels it when the pads of her fingers hover over his cheek, light as a butterflies wing. It's like she's afraid to touch him, like she'll shatter the illusion if she does. He understands completely, but he wants that touch more than he needs to breathe.

He turns his face into her palm, nose brushing over its center. The slightest twitch in her fingers, and he grazes his lips over the meat of her thumb, down to her wrist. He can feel the blood, warm under her skin, her pulse fluttering against his lips. _(It's everything.)_

There's no stopping it; Kouga holds her hand to his cheek and kisses the bend, soft lingering things, breath moistening her skin. He inhales, and the smell hits him like a ton of bricks.

_(She wants him.)_

His hand moves from her waist to the hem of her dress, risen high on her thigh. Warm fingers cup smooth flesh, slipping beneath the fabric to pull her thigh over his. The smell assaults him, hardening him in his jeans, but it doesn't matter. It's secondary to everything else he's feeling.

Kouga lets go of her wrist to press more kisses to her chin, up her jaw to the throbbing pulse in her neck. Kagome's not pushing him away, instead making little sounds of encouragement at his attention. He settles his attention there, tasting the life in her.

The tang of their want coats his nose, makes him heady. He wants to lose himself in it, to let go, to put everything he has into making more of it. He wants to know the fragrance of their joining, to have it linger and live in his sheets. _(He wants her with him for eternity.)_

He scrapes his teeth at the nape of her neck, fangs itching to grow and sink. Her core rocks into him at the feeling, and he does it again, a little harder, a little longer. Kagome’s as lost as he is, her gasps and whimpers howling in his ears. _(He has her. She belongs to him.)_

Rather than roll her onto her back, he drags her over him. But Kagome isn’t mindless, and she tugs him up, holding him to her. Kouga takes a moment to breathe, try to get his bearings. Kagome’s fingers are in his hair, tugging the tail loose so she can feel its length. It’s a wolfish show of affection, whether or not she’s aware of it. He feels a smile tug at his lips for the first time in decades, and nuzzles her for it.

His eyes are drawn downwards, to the sight of her dress pooling over their laps. It’s just long enough to be decent while she’s standing, but anything else _(even this)_ reveals the softness of her skin. It does something to him, makes him want to catch, to chase, to have her always dress like this. Innocence and prey, temptation _(mate.)_

Kouga doesn’t see the way his eyes tint red at the edge, doesn’t feel the difference in himself as they change. But Kagome must read something in him, or knows enough about lost control and demons _(don’t think about it, don’t wonder, the mutt’s been dead for years and there’s nothing he can do about it)_ to draw his lips back to her neck. It works, and he focuses on the taste of her skin again.

Kagome is still making those noises, the ones that go straight to his cock, make him want to claim her here and now. But the way she’s acting, there’s no need for it. He knows it, same as she.

Kagome belongs with him. She’s here, in his arms, in his woods, his cabin. He’s found her again.

Just like he knows she’s found her home in him.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on my writing blog for updates and teasers at cryysiswritesthings!


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